St Swithin, Quenington

Seeing the world as a child

Matthew 9: 9-13/ 18-26 Acts 4:13-end

We all see the world differently but we have to learn to how to interpret it so we can communicate. Let me give you an example. Dyslexics see the world in 3D, that is they see an object as a whole, from all angles. but they have to learn to see it in 2D. A 2D image is a flat plain, it is easier to read because our eyes can tavel along the surface of the page or image. The reason for this is that in order to read we need to follow the order of the words linearly. I believe that all children begin by seeing the world in 3D but over time and with instruction they begin to read the world as an adult does. To be an artist though we have to unlearn all we were taught at school and begin again.

Maybe that’s why all the most creative people are rule breakers. Jesus was the greatest of all rule breakers because he wanted us to see the world in a new way. In our passage today we see him crossing sacred boundaries that defined the way the world worked. These boundaries were given to bring order out of chaos but they only worked if you were on the right side of the boundary. Most people were not, they were ‘Sinners’, that is they couldn’t or wouldn’t obey the rules. Matthew was one of those ‘Sinners’, a Tax collector working for the Roman regime and therefore ‘Unclean’. So was the woman who touched Jesus’ robe, she had a menstrual problem, all menstruating women were unclean. So was the little girl who Jesus goes to heal, she was dead, and touching a corpse would defile you. So in the course of a day Jesus had crossed most of the sacred boundaries that kept the ‘Righteous’ on the right side of the fence. No wonder the Pharisees, the religious police of the day, were scandalised.

In 1907 its painter, Pablo Picasso, broke all of the rules that the "artistically correct" learned at the art academies: he disposed of three-dimensional perspective, abandoned harmonious proportion, used distortion, and borrowed from the art of primitive cultures.

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Picasso.

Because a child is a creative genius by nature. Their way to see or interpret the world is crazy, and wonderful. But they should receive “teachings” to fit the world in order to survive. They are told how the world is and their creative view of the world is forgotten.

Picasso said once : “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

You need to understand the mechanisms that make the existing worlds function to create a new world. You need to understand how a language works to create a language. If you want to beautify a garden, you need to know where that garden is. The reasoning is elemental, and Picasso’s rule seems obvious because it is. But not everybody takes it as a rule.

Becoming an artist takes patience: the patience of knowing you are a learner. And the humbleness and joy of knowing you are a learner your whole life, even after you start breaking the rules.

Picasso is a great example to illustrate Picasso’s rule. He had studied Cézanne for years, when he broke the rules and “started Cubism” with The Young Ladies of Avignon, It took him nine months to finish the painting. At least 800 sketches and studies made for The Young Ladies of Avignon have been kept. A clear example to show that breaking the rules is harder than following them. We may say that he already knew how to break the rules when he painted Guernica: but there are still 45 sketches on which he worked in the weeks previous to the execution of the work. There is no such a thing as a genius who became one just by mere chance.

Another of my favourite Picasso quotes is:

“God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.”

That’s why, I believe, Jesus welcomed all sorts and conditions, God loves us because he made us. We are all beautiful in his eyes. If Jesus had to cross boundaries to teach people to see the world the way God sees the world, then he would. The problem with a rules based morality is that it allows us to feel smug. ‘I keep the rules so I must be a good person’, but the reverse of that is that ‘He or she doesn’t keep, or can’t keep the rules, so I must let them know they are unwelcome at my parties, or in my church.’

Right and wrong based morality allow us to feel comfortable with ourselves, because we can quite easily divide the world into those who we find acceptable and those who we don’t.

Jesus asks us to see the world through different eyes. He uses the language of medicine, he looks at the human condition through the the eyes of a doctor.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means.” Matthew 9: 12/13

Which of us would say they have no need of a doctor? Our world is constantly in search of health and happiness, whether it is through ‘the body beautiful’ or just peace of mind we are restless for something more, something better. It is the same desire as that of the Pharisees, a search after perfection, a return to paradise, but not as the Pharisees understood it. Jesus’ way was by radical love that knew no boundaries. Jesus is the doctor who heals us with his love.

In this one day we see how by his welcome he reaches out to Matthew, the Tax collector to embrace him as a brother, and hosts a dinner at his house. By his words to the woman in such distress he heals her and returns her to her family whole and now no longer untouchable. In Luke’s gospel we hear that the girl has died before Jesus arrives and so in raising her from death we look forward to the greatest healing of all. As Isaiah writes:

‘Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed’ Isaiah 53: 5

One of Picasso’s most famous quotes is ‘Bad artist copy, great artists steal’ . By this I think he meant that a great artist will take what others have created and reinterpret it, that is they use it in a way that makes us see things in a new way. Jesus always claimed that he was not breaking the law but fulfilling it:

‘Do not think I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come to fulfil them.’ Matthew 5:17

Jesus was a good law observing Jew, he just helped us understand the law in a new way. A way that embraced all, now we no longer see the world in 2D ‘Right and Wrong’ but 3D where we are made whole.

Rev Simon Brignall

St Swithin, Quenington

Seeing the world as a child

'In the name of the Father'

The day of Pentecost. Acts 2:1 – 11/ John 20: 19 - 23

To Know the Shepherd. John 10: 1 - 18/1 Peter 2:19-end